Development of a prototype nickel optic for the Constellation-X hard x-ray telescope: III

Abstract

The Constellation-X (Con-X) mission planned for launch in 2015, will feature an array of Hard X-ray telescopes (HXT) with a total collecting area greater than 1500 cm² at 40 keV. Two technologies are being investigated for the optics of these telescopes, including multilayer coated Electroformed-Nickel-Replicated (ENR) shells. The attraction of the ENR process is that the resulting full-shell optics are inherently stable and offer the prospect of better angular resolution which results in lower background and higher instrument sensitivity. We are building a prototype HXT mirror module using an ENR process to fabricate the individual shells. This prototype consists of 5 shells with diameters ranging from 150 mm to 280 mm with a length of 426 mm. The innermost of these will be coated with iridium, while the remainder will be coated with graded d-spaced W/Si multilayers. Parts I and II of this work were presented at the SPIE meetings in 2003 and 2004. This paper presents a progress update and focuses on accomplishments during this past year. In particular, we will present results from full illumination X-ray tests of multilayer coated shells, taken at the MPE-Panter X-ray facility.